To receive industry-leading AI updates and exclusive content, sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters. Learn more
AI Video Creation Platform Hedorah Raised $10 million in seed funding,continue Demand for AI-focused investments There is growing interest in creative products powered by generative AI.
Hedra was founded by former employees of Nvidia, Google, and Meta, and its investors include Index Ventures, Abstract, and A16Z Speedrun.
As part of its seed round, Hedra also quietly released a video-focused platform called Character-1, which the company said was “the fastest video platform on the market” and previewed for researchers in June.
“Until now, creators have faced a trade-off between control and speed with generative video models,” the company said.[In June]”Our research preview, Character-1, showed that this is no longer the case. Its speed and ease of use are designed to dramatically increase the efficiency of content creators and marketers.”
Hedora said that more than 350,000 users have used the Character-1 platform and created more than 1.6 million videos. The company said that many of the videos created on Character-1 have gone viral on Reddit and Instagram. Hedora emphasized that users can create AI pop stars and AI-generated content. It also hopes to continue improving safety and content moderation features.
The company plans to focus on making its platform more multimodal, allowing it to “integrate story, sound, and video generation into one unified workflow.” Hedra wants to streamline content creation by using AI to customize digital avatars and characters.
Hedorah’s Character-1 is the latest video generation model to be made public in recent months. Haiper 1.5, which came out of stealth in March, is said to be a rival to OpenAI’s Sora. RunwayML, one of the pioneers in AI-generated video, publicly released its Gen-3 Alpha model in July, and Luma AI announced its realistic video platform Dream Machine in June.
Captions, another video platform, raised $60 million in Series C funding in July.
Big players like OpenAI and Google are also getting into the AI-powered video game. OpenAI’s Sora hasn’t been released to the public yet, but the company is working with brands and filmmakers to show off its platform. Google unveiled Veo in May.
